


Borderlines

by WhiteLadyoftheRing



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-17 04:32:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteLadyoftheRing/pseuds/WhiteLadyoftheRing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A running perspective of the Ishval War; Riza Hawkeye grows from girl to murderer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Borderlines

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through chapter 65-ish of the manga.

Hawkeye watches him march off to war. Not in the literal sense, but reads his final letter, written – so he says – as he packs away the remains of his individuality into a sparse duffel. The thought follows her for hours – what he's packed and what he's chosen to leave behind; if he's taken only the things he'll need, or maybe he's tucked Flamel's _Principles of Alchemy_ into the side pocket. He has a photograph of her, she remembers, but can only imagine it lining a dusty trunk in the corner of his mother's attic.

 

Going off to war isn't as romantic as her love stories have long implied. There are no long, emotional goodbyes, no promise of daily letters home, nor packages of homemade cookies somehow escaping the destructive force of the harsh desert sands. War is ugly and messy, and she can only imagine the horrors out there as she watches young boys leave, only to return as broken old men, carrying their comrades in pine boxes on their shoulders. No, she has no idea what it's like out there beyond the walls of this city.

 

Taking a deep breath, she tucks the letter into the inner pocket of her pack, safe with the others. She won't write him back – she never has – but this is what she chooses to bring with her; a bond she dare not leave behind.

 

The letters are burning against her back as she reports, trading her orders for a rifle, and she wonders if Roy Mustang will even recognize the quiet girl from his youth, or if they'll pass one another by, just two more soldiers fighting to stay alive.

 

 

-

 

She catches sight of him through her scope, squinting up at her figure in the darkness, and for a brief moment – only a second, she swears – she regrets having saved him.

 

They meet again, firelight flickering between them, and she advances, angry and hurt and naïve and not wanting to believe he could have let this happen. He could have stopped it, he could fix anything with alchemy – a vase, a radio, the tear in her skirt – but not this. She's broken now and he makes no move to fix her, only stares at her with those killer's eyes, as if he thinks he should apologize but knows it'll do no good.

 

“Do you remember me?” she demands, and she knows it's a silly question. War is not poetic; she has no longing to rush forward and embrace him, merely an irrational, childish need to hit him, to show him exactly how broken she is because he could have stopped this.

 

But he looks just as broken as she; the words are hardly more than a breath - “How could I forget?”

 

So instead she gazes back at him with her killer's eyes and reminds herself that Riza Hawkeye does not cry. Murderers never cry.

 

 

–

 

She wonders when her sadness turns into anger, but finds no answer, knowing only that it does. She's angry and afraid and Mustang's right there, so close that what had started as a sob ends with her fist making rough contact with his chest.

 

She hits him and he takes it, grunting a little when her hand makes contact with his gut, but he endures again and again as her fists beat angrily against his chest. She doesn't hate him anymore, she realizes, that emotion nothing more than a fleeting thought. She hates this life that she's chosen for herself – that he's chosen for them both. She hates it and she wonders how far they've fallen to end up here, in a world of sand and blood and death, huddled together like children riding out a thunderstorm.

 

 

–

 

She's shot. Her makeshift bandage is soaked through and her vision is blurring at the edges, and still, the fear of her secret being discovered runs deeper than the pain shooting through her arm and shoulder. There's a flickering light coming from within his tent, and she enters quickly, securing the flap behind her.

 

He works silently, using his field knife to strip away the surrounding fabric, revealing the long line left by the bullet grazing her flesh. She hisses as he cleans the wound and winds crisp white gauze from shoulder to elbow.

 

“Thank you,” she says at last, slinging her rifle over her good shoulder.

 

“You shouldn't be here,” he replies, eying the small pile of blood-soaked cloth left on the floor. “Here . . . at war.”

 

She doesn't mean to sound bitter, but her shoulder is throbbing and she bites out, “This was my war before I fired a single shot,” and she regrets it as he looks away. “Thank you for helping me, Major,” she says and turns to leave. “And for your discretion.”

 

 

–

 

“ _Don't avert your eyes from death. Look straight ahead. Look squarely at the people you're killing, and don't forget them. Never forget them. Because they won't forget you.”_

 

And she won't, though every fiber of her being wishes to cast aside these memories of death and suffering; to leave this world of sand and blood and _perversion_. Reality is twisted here, and the Ishvalans are no more than animals to half the troops – animals to be hunted down, whose blood is to be smeared across their faces in some deviant victory ritual. There is nothing human about a brutal massacre on peaceful women and children, and she's certain that it's her comrades who are the animals.

 

Monsters.

 

And maybe she's a monster too.

 

Because she can still hear the cries of a little girl on the side of the road, pushing at the limp form of her mother's body. She's crying for help, and no-one cares. She's crying for help and then – a gunshot. And she's not crying anymore.

 

Hawkeye sobs roughly against Mustang's shoulder, and turns her face upwards to kiss him. And it isn't gentle; he tastes of blood and sweat and _ash_ , and the sand is everywhere, finding every crevice and sticking to their bodies – slick and hardened, pockmarked with scars – and she's sure she'll never feel clean again.

 

She tries to focus on the beating of his heart, the steady drumming of life that seems so fragile now.

 

The girl is still crying.

 

_Never forget._

 

 

–

 

The war ends as it began – pointless and bloody. But to Hawkeye, the war will never truly be over. There will always be a little girl crying, and the smell of burning flesh. There will always be blood on her hands, and destruction carved into her back.

 

They board the train together, silent, and she sits some rows behind him. There's something private, intimate about leaving this battlefield now, because a shallow grave in the sand isn't enough to bury her regret. She leans her cheek against the cool glass of the window, and thinks maybe she doesn't deserve to return. Far too many have died, leaving grieving families in their wake. There's no-one left to grieve for Riza Hawkeye.

 

She watches as a sandstorm stirs behind them, nature reclaiming the blood and destruction they've left behind.


End file.
